To Seoul (1)

Seoul (1) — Incheon Gongseong High School, Main Gate

Park Jinheon cleared the barricade surrounding the school gate with a light burst of leaping strides.

The athletic field of his alma mater, reached exactly one week after he'd left it.

He clicked his tongue quietly at the sight of two zombies shambling across the grounds, then kept his eyes on them as they wandered restlessly back and forth, never still for a moment, while checking the rooftop.

There was no sign of Kim Haeil either — the kid who was always up there scanning the surroundings with his binoculars.

He should have been waving enthusiastically down at him by now.

Did he hide inside because of those zombies on the field?

It was true that even a handful of zombies posed a real danger to the friends still holed up in the school. Thinking it through, Kim Haeil's response actually made sense.

For zombies, the most important senses for hunting prey were sight and hearing.

If those freakish monsters had ever developed a sense of smell on top of that… he didn't even want to imagine it.

He marked out the classroom of Class 10, third year, where his friends would be hiding. Right about now, they'd be waiting for him, hearts in their throats.

He had burned through far more time on Yeongjongdo than he'd anticipated.

Getting to the place where the gunshots had come from hadn't been the problem — an awakener moved faster and more efficiently ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠than any ordinary person could even conceive.

It was everything after his arrival on Yeongjongdo, after he'd found the group he'd been tracking, that had cost him.

Dozens of ships clustered off the coast of Yeongjongdo, their mass so vast it looked like a man-made island. That enormous collective had proposed a deal to him.

The gist: if an awakener like himself helped them retake Incheon International Airport, they would provide him with ample weapons and food.

There was no reason to refuse, so Park Jinheon accepted the offer.

And then he witnessed a world he had never known existed.

The world they were holding out in — and fighting to conquer — was on an entirely different plane from him bashing in a few dozen zombies with a baseball bat.

Waves of human bodies pouring endlessly from wrecked, shattered passenger planes. The dog-like mutants that had dug in inside the airport, supporting the zombies. Gunfire falling like rain, supernatural abilities staining the battlefield in every direction.

Not a mere clash of humans, but a full-scale siege between mankind and the undead.

In the thick of that ferocious battle, Park Jinheon had proven himself to the artificial-island collective.

His one and only skill — and the colossal potential hidden inside it.

Every time Park Jinheon killed something, his "kill stacks" grew. And with every stack that accumulated, his overall physical stats rose.

A skill architecture that embodied the great late bloomer — the return of the king. It was precisely the growth trajectory he had dreamed of and craved.

That was why "Mother," the leader of the artificial island, had accepted his demands. In the middle of the raging retaking operation, he'd secured a place for his friends to settle on the island.

Now they too would have a home — a real one, where they could stretch out their legs and sleep. He would have fellow awakened comrades to fight beside, backs entrusted to one another. Add the stacks he'd piled up in the airport battle on top of that, and his body had been transformed beyond recognition from when he'd left this place.

He landed on the sand with a thud.

Whish—!

A thin gust of sand-laced wind trailed after Park Jinheon as his body stretched into a long afterimage. He claimed the blind rear of a zombie that was grinding itself against a soccer goalpost, then swung the baseball bat pulled from his inventory in one savage arc.

Crack—!

The back of the zombie's skull burst in a spray of dark blood where the blow landed.

Checking the rising stack, Park Jinheon charged the last remaining zombie.

Thwack—! Thwack—!

"Keeeaaagh—!"

At the dull impact, the creature registered his presence and shrieked. Compared to the terror he'd felt in the retaking operation, it was so pitifully adorable that a laugh escaped him.

He brought the bat slashing down like he meant to split it clean through, straight into the face of the zombie as it came sprinting at him in a frenzy.

Crack—!

He yanked the bat free from the skull it had skewered, and the zombie's body simply collapsed in on itself.

He was stronger now than he had been a moment ago. Faster. More powerful. He could feel it instinctively, in his bones.

Keep growing at this steady pace, and no awakener alive would be able to stand against him. And then…

Park Jinheon grinned wolfishly, thinking of "Mother" — leader of the artificial island — and the girl who'd served among her officers. Just picturing the faces those women would make beneath him was enough to make his pulse race and his blood rush south.

The leader called "Mother," whom he'd briefly gotten a taste of, was a deeply strange woman. Before you joined their collective, she was insufferably demanding — but once you were in, she softened considerably. Like the skill she had awakened, she was excessively altruistic and brimming with affection toward her own family. It must have been that character, that temperament, that had made her the leader of such an enormous group.

Which was exactly why Park Jinheon had no doubt whatsoever that the island she was building would become the most democratic collective in all of South Korea.

And so he needed underlings. After all, he'd learned that the most important thing in democracy was headcount.

He could still see it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vividly — the eyes of his friends hanging on his every mood, looking to him like eager puppies. Nine young men so weak they couldn't kill a single zombie, plus one awakener barely worth the name.

With them at his back, Park Jinheon had dreamed a rose-tinted future of swallowing the artificial island whole.

"That's why I bothered coming all the way back here, annoyances and all."

Flicking clumps of gore off his blood-caked bat, Park Jinheon entered the new wing where the third-year classrooms stood. He climbed the central staircase and stopped short in front of Class 10.

…I can't hear a single sound of breathing.

On top of that, sharp, potent smells were registering in his nostrils — the jumbled scent of a dozen different foods mixed together — and he steadied the hope that had begun to loosen inside him.

Creeeeak—

He stepped into the classroom slowly, warily scanning the room, and took it all in. A completely empty classroom. Food trays strewn haphazardly across the floor. Jajangmyeon, sweet and sour pork, braised pig's trotters…

Dishes he could never so much as taste again, simply abandoned there.

The answer was simple.

"Fuck… which little shit did this."

While he was gone, another awakener had made contact with his underlings. And a considerably powerful one, at that.

"No, seriously, fuck! Why?!"

Those bastards were utterly, colossally useless. They couldn't even swing the weapons he'd hung on them for self-defense, soaked in defeat as they were. What the hell did anyone want with surplus resources that did nothing but guzzle food?

"Ah! The food!"

Park Jinheon rushed to the space where his own stockpile had been stored. Not a single scrap of the food he'd painstakingly hauled out of the stadium remained.

"You motherfucking piece of shit! I told them to bring the food too!"

He'd lost his underlings, and he'd lost his food. And to a bastard he never saw coming.

"FUUUCK!"

Thud—! Thud—!

Behind him, desks splintered under his furious kicks as he stalked over to where the food had been. And there, for the first time, he found a trace.

"'Salvation'? What the hell kind of garbage is that, you thieving bastard!"

He kicked that one into oblivion too, wheezing as he did.

"Khh! Ugh, goddamn it!"

He was batting away the dust swirling up from the violent movement when his eyes flashed.

Right — dust!

A lightning bolt of inspiration struck Park Jinheon's head. He hurried out into the corridor and focused his vision.

Dust motes, stark and distinct in the sunlight streaming through the windows. The hallway floor where that dust would pile up thick. And across it, faint but unmistakable — countless footprints.

"I can at least get a rough idea."

Park Jinheon followed the ghostly tracks. Contrary to his expectation that they'd lead downward, the trail guided him up — to the school rooftop.

And there, on the rooftop, the footprints stopped dead.

Only the sound of a fierce wind rattling the chair Kim Haeil had always favored greeted Park Jinheon.

"Rooftop. Salvation."

With just those two clues dropped behind them, they had vanished without a trace — his friends, his food, and the unknown awakener alike.

Park Jinheon raked his hands through his hair, combing through clues that refused to connect. Strip away the ambiguous word "rooftop," and exactly one lead remained.

"…Salvation."

Park Jinheon bit his lip, growling the last clue out between his teeth.

Without his friends and the food, he couldn't go back to the artificial island. No — he wouldn't go back. He'd made all that noise about how great things would be, and he was supposed to return empty-handed? Absolutely not. Never.

You. I will find you, no matter what.

And then…

"Whoever the hell you are ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— you're dead."

You're going to become my precious stacks.

Creeeak—

The door to the executive office on the third floor of the Salvation Cult building swung open. The executives stepped out into the brilliant sunshine and made their way down the corridor, where the knights of the Salvation Cult were waiting — falling into protective formation around us as we walked.

The white ceremonial robes of the knights paired in perfect harmony with the gunmetal-gray assault rifles in their hands. Watching my knights armed with the Faith's Sword, I nodded in satisfaction. As expected — you can't beat the classic black and white!

With that contented smile on my face, I also checked the faith reserves and production rate, which had grown by leaps and bounds.

For the first time in ages, my reserves were holding steady above 10,000. And my faith production rate was on the verge of breaking through 1,000.

The explosive surge in faith production owed itself, of course, to the newly awakened believers. I looked at Kim Haeil, who was escorting me at the closest distance of anyone.

The third awakened believer of the Hanmaum Salvation Cult. A first-tier awakener in name only, without even a middling skill to call his own.

The truth was that Kim Haeil hadn't refused to answer my question about what his skill was — he simply couldn't. And only after hearing him say he had no skill did I remember that the main reward from my own "First Zombie Kill as an Awakener" had been a Skill Creation Ticket.

An awakener with no special talent, no innate gift of any kind. Come to think of it, I'd whined to the System about not having a skill either, back in the day. If I hadn't acted decisively back then, I probably would have been no different from Kim Haeil.

But a second awakening — one that grants a definite class — changes everything. A class always comes bundled with skills suited to it. And for awakeners who became believers of the Salvation Cult, a second awakening inevitably followed.

I pulled up Kim Haeil's updated status window from the Believer Management tab.

The System, reading my intentions with perfect precision, had suggested the class of Vigilantes Vice Captain for Kim Haeil.

The captain's seat itself I had yet to fill. If there existed an item that could awaken someone, the odds were high I'd seat Seo Taosan there — otherwise, I planned to farm a powerful combat awakener and put them in the chair.

Also, the System still refused to recognize my knights as a proper knightly order. Which presumably meant that, like the Saintess and the Apostles, they too had their own required buildings and items.

Aside from that, I had no real complaints. I couldn't quite see what a skill like Pursuit had to do with the vigilante corps, but there was no denying it was a useful ability.

Awakener by awakener, like this, each and every one of them returns to me as a great power.

"Ahh, this still stings, though."

Which was why I so badly wanted to farm that awakener — Park Jinheon or whatever his name was. I'd made a point of collecting the canned goods and remaining food, and left a message of my own behind, but naturally he wouldn't understand it, right?

Is there not a single awakener out there who can do broadcasts or telepathy?

Haah… that Park Jinheon bastard — if he's really carrying a good skill, I should have grabbed him and dragged him back with us on the spot.

"…Your face is full of sorrow, Cult Leader."

Seong Gaeul sidled up beside my deeply furrowed brow and murmured. It was her way of telling me to wipe that look off my face — indirect only because the other believers might overhear; in substance, it was as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠blunt as ever.

"Haha, my apologies. Just thinking of Park Jinheon, whom I failed to bring back with me from the school — it pains me a little."

"Ohh— not at all, Cult Leader. Jinheon, too, shall surely come to know the Truth one day."

"Indeed. We shall meet him, without fail, in the near future."

At the sight of me gazing wistfully up at the ceiling, the eyes of the surrounding knights grew fervent. At the same time, the soft scratching of pen on paper behind me grew louder.

Kim Eunbyeol, no doubt, was passionately transcribing the exchange that had just taken place. She must have handled the birth of the first knights just as masterfully, too — I had been thoroughly satisfied with Chapter One of the Book of Salvation she had devoted herself to, so I imagined Chapter Two would be equally fine.

Just as Seong Gaeul had said, I shook off that faint lingering regret and started down the stairs.

At long last — it was time to level up the statue.